Ten Albums That Changed My Life
My friend from high school and fellow CA transplant Mike Byrne tagged me on Facebook with one of the viral notes that has been going around, and this one inspired me to post. There was no way I could limit it to just 10 albums. Enjoy!
1. KISS – Destroyer: 3rd grade in 1977, the first real rock and roll I got into
2. The Beatles – Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band: LOVED The Beatles in grade school
With a Little Help From My Friends
3. Led Zeppelin – Houses of the Holy: Hearing The Ocean for the first time blew my mind
4. The Grateful Dead – Cornell ‘77: Its not an album, but it sure is awesome.
5. Bob Marley & The Wailers – Rastaman Vibration: My Dad somehow owned this great record - I’ll never forget being curious and digging it out in 5th grade, dropping the needle and hearing the dub groove for the first time.
6. Dire Straits – Alchemy: Straits!!Strictly speaking this video isn’t from Alchemy, but Knopfler played the same notes every night so it might as well have been. Knopfler melts Clapton’s face for a few minutes starting at 4:30 and then at 8:00.
7. Pearl Jam – Yield: One of only 4 or 5 cassettes I had when I drove around Europe and Turkey for 3 months in ‘98, their most underrated album and still my favorite.
8. Thelonious Monk – Monk’s Music: One perfect melody after another with Hawkins, Monk and ‘Trane trading jams. Purchased in Providence in a bargain bin, played 1000 times.
9. Joni Mitchell – Blue: well, you know
10. Drive-By Truckers – Southern Rock Opera: My favorite rock band reaching and making anthems work - a masterpiece
11. The Stooges – Fun House: Missed this one growing up in the Aerosmith, J Geils, Boston dominated Northeast in the late 70s, discovered it later, now a lot of other things make sense
12. Ryan Adams and the Cardinals – Cold Roses: No artist gets more airtime on my stereo the last few years - this is the record that drew me in.
13. Howlin’ Wolf – London Sessions: Introduced me to the Blues when I found it at age 14 – without that where would I be?
14. The Allman Brothers Band – Live at the Fillmore: (hon. mention Derrick and the Dominoes at the Filmore, Band of Gypsies at the Filmore, Santana at the Filmore, and Bill Graham)
15. Bob Dylan – Blood on the Tracks: My favorite album by my favorite artist
You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go
16. Steve Earle and the Del McCoury Band – The Mountain: The greatest bluegrass album ever recorded, and nobody knows it. The mandolin intro on The Graveyard Shift is precision awesome.
17. Neil Young with Crazy Horse – Everybody Knows This is Nowhere: Still thrills me to cue this one up, the soundtrack to a lot of wild times in high school on the tape deck of my ‘78 Pontiac Catalina.
17. Bruce Springsteen – Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.: A lot of Springsteen albums could be on this list, but this one stands the test of time - the Boss was my guy in the musical wasteland of the early 80s.
18. Miles Davis – Filles de Kilimanjaro: We all wish we were cool, I wish I was Miles.
19. Kimmie Rhodes – Love Me Like a Song: I heard Love and Happiness on public radio late at night in my car, searched out the album, then searched out Kimmie in Austin and became friends. Alec and JJs favorite lullaby, and for that I’ll always be greatful.
20. Tom Waits – The Heart of Saturday Night: “Love needs a transfusion, let’s shoot it full of wine - fishin’ for a good time starts with throwin’ in your line.”
21. Tom Petty - Damn the Torpedoes: A nearly perfect rock and roll record that I never tire of listening to.
22. Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble - Soul to Soul: I saw SRV 6 times in concert before he died during my junior year in college. I had tickets to his final show but I passed on the 3 hour drive from South Bend to Wisconsin because I had just seen him the month before. The first time I saw him was at a Jazz festival in Massachusetts touring for this album the day I got my driver’s license.
Ain’t Gone ‘N’ Give Up On Love
23. Brian Eno – Music For Airports: An original Sam-leg (burn by my brother-in-law Sam), this album and red wine has gotten me through that last hour of the JFK-SFO, ATX-SAN, SEA-LAX more times than I care to count.
Posted: February 24th, 2009 under mp3blog, social networking.
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